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Underspace recently entered its Early Access phase, and I was among those chosen to don a spacesuit and travel among the stars. The game is still considerably young and has plenty of development left to do; despite that, I really enjoyed what I took in, as I aimlessly flew around, or took part in missions to build up a reputation and supply of cash. However, there were some hurdles for me, but thankfully that won’t be the case for everyone.
My time with Underspace wasn’t as long as I’d like, but as of this writing, I’m still taking treks out into space to see what lurks among the powerful space storms. This game reminds me of some of the games I played in my youth, only much prettier and more active.
Underspace combines classic PC spacefaring with Lovecraftian horror
Underspace is, at its core, a spiritual successor to the classic PC game Freelancer, released back in 2000 for PC. It wasn’t easy, but it was an incredibly satisfying game to play. However, games like that, while I think are fun, exciting experiences, something holds me back from enjoying them, and this one was no exception.
Space shooters like Underspace have movement that triggers my motion sickness in a pretty powerful way. I can only play in small bursts, without starting to feel dizzy or nauseous. A lot of it comes from the constant wobbling and swaying of the ship, or from the intense, rolling and dodging that comes from combat.
I wanted to get that out of the way early because although it disappointed me that the game was physically uncomfortable to play, it didn’t stop me from enjoying it. In Underspace, players are one of several bold pilots who take to the stars and take on challenging missions and even hunt monsters. That’s right, there are monsters in space.
Gigantic Lovecraftian horrors that swim across the stars, devastating anything that they come across. Some have said this is too close to being Freelancer, but I don’t know that I agree with that sentiment. It feels similar, in how it flies and plays, but the story and experience are very much its own.
Underspace’s gameplay loop is simple but satisfying
Thankfully, Underspace’s gameplay tutorial is solid and explains pretty much everything I needed to know. However, I constantly feel like I have to refer back to hotkeys and such because there’s just so much to it. I think that’s more because I don’t play space travel games like this, Elite Dangerous, or Star Citizen very often.
Players can dock on space stations/planets and listen to the latest rumors, take jobs, purchase ships/parts, and acquire commodities to sell to other places for more money. You can take on plenty of contacts and missions or just travel through space and see what lurks among the stars.
It’s not too hard to navigate the areas you traverse on foot, at least. You’re going to want to travel often, complete missions, and earn money so you can level up your various skills, and then head right back out into space. However, when in space, it just felt like there were so many things on my screen; it wasn’t always clear where I needed to go, much less how I got there.
Most of the space travel I did was pretty leisurely, and you can use auto-flight to keep on a direct path if that’s what you want. As soon as a fight broke out with enemy ships though, that’s when the pace picked up.
This leads me to one of the things I love about Underspace: you can adjust how much incoming damage you take and how much you deal to enemies in the settings when you’re starting a file. This is amazing because I’m rubbish at flight sims/flight games. It gave me the edge I needed to take on these various battles.
Battle with enemy ships is where my motion sickness hit the hardest. The constant flipping, flying, and rotating made my stomach churn. As fun and intense as it was, I could barely deal with it without stopping and doing something else. Conversely, you’ll still be dodging and swerving around against the massive Lovecraftian horrors, but that’s more to avoid their incoming attacks.
Visually appealing, but the voiceover is weak
The AI voices of Underspace are just weak to me. I’m not at all a fan of how the game sounds. The soundtrack is okay, and I understand that music is subjective. However, the actual voice work felt lackluster. I also understand that it’s expensive to budget for quality voice actors and that text-only in a space shooter would not work well. It is worth noting that the in-game text stated these were placeholders, so they could very well change later.
Visually speaking though, Underspace is stellar. The stars look and the cataclysmic cosmic storms look stunning. The UI is very simple and plain, but it tells you all the things you need to know. The space station areas are serviceable enough visually, but the game shines among the stars.
In conclusion
I think Underspace shows a ton of promise. This outerspace sandbox RPG is really interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops across its Early Access phase. While the space combat still makes me feel dizzy and uncomfortable, that is no fault of the developers and is just something I personally have to deal with. It performs pretty well on my PC, and other than a few crashes or black screens upon loading a file, I didn’t experience any particular issues.
I do think that if it were clearer what I was doing at any given time, it would also help. The bulk of the gameplay was fun, but there were little things that baffled me. Trying to auto-dock into a space station sometimes took me 5-10 minutes, while I traveled in a circle around the station until I finally docked.
I didn’t understand why that was happening. Despite its minor faults, Underspace shows tremendous potential.
